Illinois is often considered one of the more anti-gun states in the country, and that bothers a lot of Illinois residents. From my conversations, the issue isn’t that it’s untrue, it’s the fact that the assessment is accurate and it annoys them badly. After all, much of Illinois is made up of people who like their guns just fine.

The problem is, they’re outnumbered by the political sphincter known as Chicago.

For some time, it looked like the rest of Illinois had little option but to grumble in the corner as Chi-town pushed the state to do whatever it wanted.

Now, people are fighting back.

Gun control is one of the most hotly contested national topics. In Illinois, debate and concern around gun-related bills spawned numerous referenda throughout the state. Next month, more than a dozen rural counties across Illinois will have ballot measures asking the state to stop passing gun control laws. Iroquois County Board Chairman, John Shure, has one of them on the ballot.

“Quite frankly, our opinion, I think, in this part of the country is that law-abiding citizens are the ones that are really affected more, hurt more by that type of legislation,” said Shure. “It’s pretty well been proven in the Chicago area that strict gun control is not the answer.”

Most of these are advisory referenda to let lawmakers know how a portion of the state feels about the issue.

“From what I’ve understood, there are enough counties doing it that it ought to provide a good sampling of sentiment throughout the rural parts of the state,” said Shure.

This move isn’t the only one Illinois communities have been taking. After all, they’ve also been creating gun sanctuary counties. In other words, if the Left can ignore immigration laws, they figure they can ignore state gun laws. Especially since there’s far more constitutional support for gun sanctuary communities than there is for immigration sanctuary cities.

In the end, these ballot measures won’t do a whole lot. Illinois gun-grabbers will, at most, chuckle at the backwoods reactionaries who don’t seem to understand the Utopia that will result when they finally pass that final gun control bill. Nevermind that it hasn’t happened and Chicago had seen some of the worst violence in the country long before the McDonald decision told them that yes, the Second Amendment applied to cities.

In other words, Chicago should know that gun control doesn’t work, but it’s managed to ignore the evidence that was right in front of it.

What these ballot measures will do, however, is make it clear that the issue is Chicago, not Illinois. For those of us outside the state, it’s a reminder that Illinois is still worth fighting for, that there’s a reason to help them fight the draconian gun control measures that Chicago wants to foist on them.

Couple that with sanctuary counties in the state, and Illinois is going to be an interesting Second Amendment battleground for the next few years.